New Member with New pool

Where to start?

1. Pool stores make money by selling you pool chemicals, but if you do your pool chemistry well, you'll use as little as 1/4 of what you'd use otherwise, and what you DO use will be low margin commodity chemicals, and not the high margin chemicals stores like to sell. Not all pool store owners are dishonest, but they are almost all trained in pool chemistry by pool chemical companies. So, in theory, you might not want to trust testing and dosing to someone who will go broke if you and all your neighbors do it right! In practice, it works out that way, too.

Bottom line: if you want your pool to run well you either have to be very lucky OR you have to learn to test and adjust it yourself. If you're that lucky, you don't need us. Otherwise, you need to get a good test kit, and learn how to use it. Links below.

2. It's much, much easier to prevent pool problems, than it is to fix them. If you are a super-neat desk guy, we may have to tell you to ease off, but if you're like most people, you'll need to work hard to develop the habit of daily quick pool care. Five minutes a day can save you tens of hours and hundreds of dollars per month.

3. Some of the gear on your new pool is probably wrong. Pool equipment companies also like to sell high margin equipment that has little risk. For example, the popular Nature2 units don't actually -- so far as we can tell -- do much of anything. So, Jandy doesn't have to worry about them 'failing'! Very, very nice profit margin; very, very little risk for Jandy or your builder. Again, your builder may not be a rip-off artist: again, his training came from Jandy, and he probably believes what they say!

Once you complete the Pool Chart, someone will probably react with, "OMG, why did you get that?" Nothing personal -- most of us have been snookered too, even if we've forgotten about it. Even some of Jandy's people believe it's a 'good' product. Don't worry about it; just cut your losses and let it go.
Pool Chart Entry Form

4. Remember, pools are frustrating on the front end, unless you hire a *good* service guy to take care of them. There's a LOT to learn, and there's a fairly steep learning curve. You WILL make some mistakes. But we've got the experience of 10,000's of people who can verify that pools CAN be easy, and CAN be fairly inexpensive, and CAN be really, really enjoyable. Just keep that in mind!

5. Winterizing is a bit complicated, especially for the new pool owner. We HIGHLY recommend that you hire it done, your first season, and take notes, photos, videos, or all three. NEXT year, you can DIY.

Good luck!

Ben

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+ When we say "Walmart", we don't necessarily mean Walmart. You can find most of these products elsewhere. But, WalMart is a known quantity, and other stores are not so much. For example, other stores have been selling store brand bleach at concentrations other than 6%, mostly lower. And, the HTH 6-way DROPS test kit -- an excellent starter kit -- is (AFAIK) available ONLY at Walmart, and not all of those.

+ Get a cheap OTO (yellow drops) / phenol test kit, or if available at YOUR Walmart (check availability), get the HTH 6-way DROPS test kit, which is compatible with the Taylor K2006. Test the pool as soon and you can, and post the results. If you get the 6-way kit, ALSO test the water you FILL the pool with, especially if it's a well, and post THOSE results as well. (The HTH is the best available kit you're likely to find locally, but it's not the K-2006. It can only provide rough measurements chlorine levels above 5 ppm, and it measures "TOTAL" hardness, rather than "CALCIUM" hardness, which is not ideal.)

+ Having a good test kit makes pool care easier for EVERYONE, but is an ESSENTIAL tool for pools with problems. A good test kit means a kit that can test chlorine from 0 - 25 ppm, pH, alkalinity, calcium hardness, and stabilizer with reasonable accuracy. Test strips (AKA 'guess-strips' ) do NOT meet this standard. Some pool store testing is accurate; most is not. The ONLY way you'll know whether your pool store is accurate or bogus, is by testing accurately your own self. On the other hand, pool store 'computer' dosing recommendations are NEVER trustworthy -- ignore them. They are designed to sell more chemicals than you need, and WILL cause many pool problems.

+ We recommend the Taylor K-2006 test kit, which meets the requirements above, for many reasons. The HTH 6-way drops kit is a great starter kit, and is compatible with the K2006 (it's made by Taylor). There are a few alternatives; for example Lamotte makes an FAS-DPD kit that's OK -- but it costs 3x as much. But, we're not aware of any test that is better, and since we are all familiar with the K-2006 (and can help you with it) we recommend it exclusively ( Test kit info page )

One caution for the 2012 season: Amazon does not stock the kits directly. So when buying at Amazon, Amato is our current preferred seller. However, they often don't list enough stock to last the whole day, so try order mid-morning. You should expect a delivered cost under $60 for the K2006A and under $95 for the K2006C. If you can't find that, wait a day.

+ Here are links to the kits we recommend (you can check local availability on the HTH kit, using the Walmart link):
HTH 6-Way Test Kit @ Walmart
Taylor K2006A (3/4 oz bottles) @ Amazon
Taylor K2006C (2 oz bottles) @ Amazon